[Pro] Video formats and Freeway

I’ve been sent a .mov file and also an .mpg4 file of a video I need to put on our website, but I need to crop the video first. Unfortunately I can’t open the file in my version of iMovie or in my version of Toast Titanium.
Can anyone advise how best to import and crop, is this something I can do within Freeway or should I buy some other software to do this (cheap though). Someone suggested Quicktime Pro which is cheap, but I don’t want to get it if it’s not going to produce the end result, or if I could have achieved this in Freeway…
I can’t find much on video in the manual…
Ta
Heather


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Hi Heather,
With QuickTime Pro, you can assign a mask from Window → Movie
Properties → click video track → Visual Settings tab → choose mask

…which will crop the movie to the visible area in the mask.

Regards,
Tim.

On 26 Apr 2010, at 13:35, Heather Hughes wrote:

I’ve been sent a .mov file and also an .mpg4 file of a video I need
to put on our website, but I need to crop the video first.
Unfortunately I can’t open the file in my version of iMovie or in my
version of Toast Titanium.
Can anyone advise how best to import and crop, is this something I
can do within Freeway or should I buy some other software to do this
(cheap though). Someone suggested Quicktime Pro which is cheap, but
I don’t want to get it if it’s not going to produce the end result,
or if I could have achieved this in Freeway…
I can’t find much on video in the manual…
Ta
Heather

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Thanks Tim


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Hi,

I think that Handbrake can solve your problem :

This (free) sotfware can read .m4v, .mov and .avi, (automatically)
crops, and converts to M4P or MKV containers, with H264, MPEG4
(ffmpeg) or VP3 video codecs. It can also integrate sub-titles files.
Some older versions (0.93 and 0.92) can also convert with an AVI
container.

Hopes that helps

All the best,

Jacques Bokobza

Le 26 avr. 2010 à 14:35, Heather Hughes a écrit :

I’ve been sent a .mov file and also an .mpg4 file of a video I need
to put on our website, but I need to crop the video first.
Unfortunately I can’t open the file in my version of iMovie or in my
version of Toast Titanium.
Can anyone advise how best to import and crop, is this something I
can do within Freeway or should I buy some other software to do this
(cheap though). Someone suggested Quicktime Pro which is cheap, but
I don’t want to get it if it’s not going to produce the end result,
or if I could have achieved this in Freeway…
I can’t find much on video in the manual…
Ta
Heather


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Hi - that would have been perfect but it only works on Mac os X 5 or higher and I’m on 4.11. I don’t have enough RAM or power on my existing computer to upgrade. Computer is getting to the end of its life but I can’t quite afford yet to buy a new one so just need a ‘patch’ for now which is not too memory hungry. I think probably I need a video converter but not Handbrake for now - will get that for the new computer :slight_smile:


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Take a look at this:

Not sure it is quite what you want, but I have used it a few times for
straightforward conversion of video material, without any hassle. And
it should work on 10.4.

Colin

On 27 Apr 2010, at 09:07, Heather Hughes wrote:

Hi - that would have been perfect but it only works on Mac os X 5 or
higher and I’m on 4.11. I don’t have enough RAM or power on my
existing computer to upgrade. Computer is getting to the end of its
life but I can’t quite afford yet to buy a new one so just need a
‘patch’ for now which is not too memory hungry. I think probably I
need a video converter but not Handbrake for now - will get that
for the new computer :slight_smile:


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Have you thought of VLC? Link here, and OK for older Macs I think.

hope this helps

Dick
On 27 Apr 2010, at 11:31, Colin Alcock wrote:

Take a look at this:

Video Converter for Mac: Convert all video formats on Mac

Not sure it is quite what you want, but I have used it a few times for straightforward conversion of video material, without any hassle. And it should work on 10.4.

Colin

On 27 Apr 2010, at 09:07, Heather Hughes wrote:

Hi - that would have been perfect but it only works on Mac os X 5 or higher and I’m on 4.11. I don’t have enough RAM or power on my existing computer to upgrade. Computer is getting to the end of its life but I can’t quite afford yet to buy a new one so just need a ‘patch’ for now which is not too memory hungry. I think probably I need a video converter but not Handbrake for now - will get that for the new computer :slight_smile:


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Hi Heather,
There’s potentially a very simple solution.
Since .mov is a wrapper, not a codec, you need to see if the codec is installed in your computer. Open the .mov in Quicktime and check if you can see the video.
Some .mov files use codecs that are installed with Final Cut Pro for example so they may not play on non FCP systems.
If you use Quicktime’s Window/Show Movie Inspector and it shows that the file is Apple ProRes you can download that free from Apple’s site.

Alternately check to see if the .mpeg4 is viewable in Quicktime. That file extension sounds a bit odd though because more common is .mp4. or .mpeg. .mp4 is also a wrapper which can contain MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 or MPEG 4 Part 10 (AKA AVC and H.264).

If either plays in Quicktime than you can use MPEG Streamclip to convert to any number of other codecs and it crops as well. You can even convert to Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) if you wanted to edit in iMovie.

Critical though is that the file(s) you have must be able to play in Quicktime.

Craig

On Apr 26, 2010, at 8:35 AM, Heather Hughes wrote:

I’ve been sent a .mov file and also an .mpg4 file of a video I need to put on our website, but I need to crop the video first. Unfortunately I can’t open the file in my version of iMovie or in my version of Toast Titanium.
Can anyone advise how best to import and crop, is this something I can do within Freeway or should I buy some other software to do this (cheap though). Someone suggested Quicktime Pro which is cheap, but I don’t want to get it if it’s not going to produce the end result, or if I could have achieved this in Freeway…
I can’t find much on video in the manual…
Ta
Heather


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Thanks for that. I found only one of the files opened in Quicktime, it was an .m4v. The .mov file wouldn’t open, but I know it came from FCP, so that would fit with what you said.
I’ve managed to crop it and save it in MPEG streamclip and export as a Quicktime.
In Freeway I set to Controller, and Aspect (in Actions). Problem is that it’s taking a while to load, there is an ugly Quicktime screen first, and then sound is OK but just a white screen. The movie doesn’t play until you click on the scroll at the side and move it.
I got the option to save as a quicktime movie when I clicked on the graphic (which I thought I’d done) but it prompts me to buy Quicktime Pro…
I think I probably haven’t selected the right options in Streamclip for exporting - what are the optimum settings?
Thanks for your help, it’s the first thing that’s worked well all day (without prompting me to buy fuller software…)


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If you are in the content creation end of the world, QuickTime Pro is
one of the best $29 you can possibly spend. QuickTime is a Swiss Army
knife of digital media, and can be plug-in enabled to handle many more
formats than it originally ships with. Really, I would buy it and
never look back. In addition to the basic editing and format
conversion utilities you get with Pro, you also unlock functionality
previously hidden in other applications – for example, Photoshop.

Walter

On Apr 27, 2010, at 10:24 AM, Heather Hughes wrote:

Thanks for that. I found only one of the files opened in Quicktime,
it was an .m4v. The .mov file wouldn’t open, but I know it came from
FCP, so that would fit with what you said.
I’ve managed to crop it and save it in MPEG streamclip and export as
a Quicktime.
In Freeway I set to Controller, and Aspect (in Actions). Problem is
that it’s taking a while to load, there is an ugly Quicktime screen
first, and then sound is OK but just a white screen. The movie
doesn’t play until you click on the scroll at the side and move it.
I got the option to save as a quicktime movie when I clicked on the
graphic (which I thought I’d done) but it prompts me to buy
Quicktime Pro…
I think I probably haven’t selected the right options in Streamclip
for exporting - what are the optimum settings?
Thanks for your help, it’s the first thing that’s worked well all
day (without prompting me to buy fuller software…)


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Well I bought Quicktime Pro, but unfortunately it’s made no difference to the problem.

In preview mode the video views fine in Safari (yet to find out how it looks in Explorer) but in Firefox I just get sound and zero picture…

Any advice? I’ve uploaded it onto http://www.anacondabellydance.com/Anaconda_Bellydance_Videos.html

I suspect I still need to compress the video more but not sure how much.

Best

Heather


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Plays fine for me in both Safari 4.0.5 and Firefox 3.6 on the Mac.


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Hmm… It just occurred to me I have FCP installed here so take my comment with grain of salt.


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Plays fine for me in both Safari 4.0.5 and Firefox 3.6 on the Mac.

Ditto here and no FCP

David


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That’s encouraging. I have an ibook, single processor G4 so am hoping the slowness is due to my computer being old and grey…
Thanks for testing the site, very grateful :slight_smile:


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Also OK in Explorer 8 and FF 3.6.3 with Vista

David


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Wonderful. Mine is Firefox 3.5.4, slightly dodgy if I watch video, if click on another page, and then go back to the video - then I get white space… Safari 4.0.4 works OK

The hoardes of bellydancers (mainly on Explorer) will test it tomorrow :slight_smile:

H


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I’ve had several people say they can’t watch the video - that it takes ages to load, and then only plays a few seconds. They’re on PCs, using Internet Explorer 8 on the whole.

Any advice on why this could be? Is it a bandwidth, software, hardware possible problem? Or should I compress the video file further (not sure how big this should be, or does Freeway do this automatically?)

Any tips on what I can do to make the video as accessible as possible would be gratefully received :slight_smile:

Thanks,

Heather


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The movie is waaaay too large for a website (90MB). Open it up in QTP, make as small as possible by dragging the corner, hit Export, choose Export Movie to QuickTime Movie, then options.

Click Settings in the Video section and change the frame rate to 24, set Keyframes to Every 128 frames, Quality to High and choose Multi-pass Encoding. Click Ok.

Click Size in Video and change the Dimensions option to 320 x 240 QVGA and check Preserve Aspect Ratio using Fit within Dimensions. Click Ok

Click Settings in Audio and change Format to Linear PCM, Channels to Stereo, the rate to 22.050 kHz, Render Quality to Normal and the Linear PCM Settings to 8 bits. Click Ok.

Check Prepare for Internet Streaming and choose Fast Start Compressed Headers, then click Ok.

Change the filename to whatever you like and hit Save.

You should now have a 14MB video that will be much more manageable.

Hope this helps,

Joe

On 30 Apr 2010, at 09:18, Heather Hughes wrote:

I’ve had several people say they can’t watch the video - that it takes ages to load, and then only plays a few seconds. They’re on PCs, using Internet Explorer 8 on the whole.

Any advice on why this could be? Is it a bandwidth, software, hardware possible problem? Or should I compress the video file further (not sure how big this should be, or does Freeway do this automatically?)

Any tips on what I can do to make the video as accessible as possible would be gratefully received :slight_smile:

Thanks,

Heather


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Hi

Thanks for replying, I’ve done all the tips above and it works fine in Safari 4.04 but in Firefox 3.5.4 I just get a white box, and get sound but no picture.

Do you know why this is?

I’ve uploaded the new video on the website if that helps - would really like to know if you can see the video and any suggestions so I can still see it in my default Firefox browser.

Many thanks,

Heather


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